Key ideas: Reading letters of famous historical figures is one of the best ways learn about the writer and the time they lived in. Pliny the Younger was a Roman lawer and senator, who wrote about social issues and important events in Roman history. These letters are groupoed by books, ten in total. The last book consists entirely of Pliny the Younger's correspondence with the emperor Trajan.
before 98
You will laugh at this, and your laughter is in order. This acquaintance of yours has captured three boars,* and most handsome ones at that. ‘What, you yourself?’ you ask. ‘Yes, but without totally abandoning my idle and restful life. I would sit by the nets, armed not with hunting-spear or lance, but with pen and tablets. I would contemplate some subject and jot it down, so that if I returned empty-handed, my tablets would be full.’
You are not to despise this manner of study, for it is remarkable how the mind is roused by exercise and movement of the body. To start with, the woodland all around, the solitude, and the silence imposed by the hunt are great incentives to thought.
So when you go hunting you can adopt my advice, and carry your tablets as well as your food-basket and flask, for you will find that Minerva roams the mountains no less than Diana.
Farewell.
You have sent no letters to me for quite a while. Your excuse is that you have nothing to write. Well, then, just write that you have nothing to write, or nothing beyond the introductory greeting which our forebears used to use:
‘If you are well, that’s fine; I am well.’ [Cicero uses this formula frequently in correspondence with his wife Terentia]
I’m satisfied with that, for it’s the main thing. Do you think I’m joking? My request is deadly serious. Do let me know how you are doing, for I cannot remain ignorant without being deeply concerned. Farewell.
Larcius Macedo, a praetorian, has suffered at the hands of his slaves a ghastly fate which merits notice more than in a mere letter. True, he was in general an arrogant and savage master, too forgetful, or rather, all too aware, that his father had been a slave.
He was taking a bath at his residence in Formiae* when suddenly slaves surrounded him. One took him by the throat, another battered his face, and a third pummelled his chest, belly, and (disgustingly) his private parts. When they thought that he was senseless, they threw him on the hot pavement to see if he was alive. Whether because unconscious or feigning unconsciousness, he lay stretched out and motionless, giving the impression of being quite dead.
Finally he was carried from the bath as though overcome by the heat. His more trusty slaves took over, and his concubines came rushing round, moaning and shouting. In this way he was both roused by their voices and revived by the cool temperature indoors. By opening his eyes and moving his body he indicated (for now it was safe) that he was alive.
Those slaves made off in different directions. Many have been caught, and the rest are being hunted. Macedo was revived with difficulty, but died within a few days...
You raise with me the question how the money which you have offered to our fellow townsmen for an annual feast can be safeguarded after you are gone. It is a worthy point to consider, but a proposal not easy to solve.
You could make over the capital to the town, but with the fear that the money may dribble away. You could make a gift of land, but being publicly owned it would be neglected. I find no arrangement more suitable than the one which I myself made.
I had promised 500,000 sesterces to pay for the rearing of freeborn boys and girls, and to cover this I allotted land worth considerably more from my estates to the city-agent; then I took the land back with the imposition of a rental by which I was to pay 30,000 sesterces a year.
By this means, the principal was secured for the state and the annual return is fixed, and the land itself will always find an owner to work it, because its produce greatly exceeds the rental. I am well aware that I seem to have paid rather more than the sum I donated, for the need to pay the rental has reduced the value of the very handsome property.
But one must put the interests of the state before private advantages, and lasting benefits before transient ones; and also look to the interests of one’s gift much more carefully than to one’s own resources. Farewell.
You do not blow your own trumpet, and no writing of mine is more sincere than that referring to you. Whether generations to come will pay any attention to us I do not know, but at any rate we deserve some notice, not for our talent (that would be an arrogant claim), but for our application, labour, and veneration for posterity. Only let us proceed on our established path. Though it has led few into the light of eminence, it has none the less allowed many to emerge from the darkness and silence of anonymity. Farewell.
Last year, my lord, I was afflicted by an illness* so serious that my life was in danger. So I called in a physiotherapist, whose concern and attentiveness I can repay with equal gratitude only by your gracious kindness.
I am therefore asking you to award him Roman citizenship, for he is a foreigner, having been manumitted by a foreign mistress. His name is Harpocras, and his patroness Thermuthis, wife of Theon, is long dead. I am also begging you to grant the rights of citizens to Media and Antonia Harmeris, freedwomen of a most distinguished lady, Antonia Maximilla. I make this plea at the request of that patroness.
In conformity with the practice of emperors, I have decided not to grant Alexandrian citizenship indiscriminately, but since you have already obtained Roman citizenship for your physiotherapist Harpocras, I do not propose to deny this further request. You will have to notify me of his native region so that I can send a letter on your behalf to my friend Pompeius Planta, prefect of Egypt.